Sins of the Father
by laurelsblue
Summary: aren't always visited upon the children. Shikamaru practices forgiveness with an unlikely candidate.


Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Sins of the Father

"Are you sure about this, Shikamaru?" Yoshino asked, concerned, glancing at her son.

"Tch. It will be troublesome but yes, I am," he replied, looking down at the child on his lap.

Two weeks ago, he had returned from the mission that destroyed the Akatsuki with a one year-old girl in tow. He had refused to divulge her parentage to anyone except the Hokage and if his team knew, they were being as tight-lipped about it as he was.

"What's her name?" she questioned, changing the subject. When they had their hearts set on something, Nara men could be just as stubborn as their wives and she could sense this was one of those things. However she still had her doubts over whether he was ready for fatherhood at eighteen but she decided to keep them to herself.

"Shiho," he replied, startled.

"To maintain one's original intention?" she murmured.

"Her father gave it to her and I find it appropriate," he said with an air of finality in his voice.

* * *

She realised fairly early that she was adopted, as she didn't resemble either of her parents. Her hair was silvery-blonde to her mother's sandier colour and neither of them had blue eyes. They didn't treat her differently to her younger siblings though so she let the matter rest for a while.

* * *

"Did you know my birth parents?" she asked, one day.

"Your father is the one to ask about that," her mother said, frowning.

It was unusual for her to defer a matter to him but she had not denied it. However he was away on a long mission so she forgot about it for a couple of years.

* * *

At twelve, she graduated from the Academy. Her teammates, Hyuuga Yuudai and Takeda Naoto, had been her friends since they had joined. Their sensei, Utatane Moegi, didn't look at her the way her parents' friends did when they thought she couldn't see them.

* * *

"This belonged to your birth father." Her father held a three-pronged scythe out to her.

She took it gingerly and nearly dropped it. "It's too heavy for me to use." She watched as he relaxed minutely and decided that asking what happened to him could wait.

* * *

On her fourteenth birthday, she became a chunin. Her parents declared her the official heir of the Nara clan.

"But I'm not a birth Nara."

"Our clan is not a bloodline one. Being born into it does make our techniques easier to use but the difference is not significant enough to matter. You mastered Kagemane faster than your siblings anyway."

* * *

"What would you do with the child of your enemy?"

"Kill them of course. They are your enemy as well and would do the same to you if they could." She looked at him, confused. Surely the answer was obvious.

He glanced at her with a guarded expression and nodded.

* * *

"Here." The page that she was handed had obviously been taken out of an old bingo book. She scanned it quickly.

"I don't know anything about your birth mother and if you asked in Kumo, they would probably deny all knowledge of her. However, the Hokage found this for you."

That made her incredibly sad. Her birth mother had been reduced to an entry in an old bingo book. She read it through and looked up.

"She was a jinchuuriki?"

"Yes, she died due to having the bijuu extracted from her."

* * *

After she became a jounin at eighteen, her father took her for a walk in the woods.

"That's where I buried your birth father."

"What happened?"

He looked at her sideways and debated whether to tell her or not.

"He was a member of the Akatsuki. I went after him for revenge because he killed my sensei. He couldn't die due to his jutsu. Somewhere under here, he's lying in pieces."

She glanced at him, then at the ground. In her mind, she tried to imagine doing what he had, taking in the child of her sensei's killer. She couldn't, so she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him. In return, he stroked her hair like he had done when she was a child. It never crossed her mind that she should hate him for what he had done.

* * *

"I found these at the same time as you."

She took the old photographs. The first showed a pale blonde woman and silver-haired man. The man was smirking as he rested one hand on the heavily pregnant woman's stomach. The woman looked incredibly irritated with him. She flipped it over. On the back was scrawled a message - taken by Kakuzu a year before extraction. The next one had her sitting on the man's lap playing with his rosary. The woman stood in the background watching them with a resigned expression. This time the message was shorter – week before extraction. The final one had her with the man and another man with odd green eyes. This was described as taken by Konan two days before their deaths.

"My birth parents?"

"Yes, these are possibly the only pictures of them outside of old bingo books."

"Who was the green-eyed man?"

"Kakuzu, your birth father's partner. He was killed by the Hokage."

* * *

Today she was getting married and she had one final question to ask.

"Why?"

He smiled. "Why not?"

And she knew that was all the answer she would get but she was content with it.

End.

* * *

Um, I don't know why I wrote this. I know it's confusing and horribly disjointed. It's meant to be a series of conversations between Shikamaru and his adopted daughter, Shiho, about her birth parents, Hidan and Yugito. Don't ask me how they ended up together or why he took her in. (He probably doesn't know himself.)

The last one is her asking him why he did it.

I didn't mean to make her sound incredibly callous with the child of your enemy thing, but I wanted to point out how illogical his actions would appear to most ninja.

Yes, her name really does mean that as far as I know. Her teammates are a random Hyuuga and some nobody.

No, Shikamaru didn't go on the destroy Akatsuki mission with just Ino and Chouji but they were the ones assigned to clear out the base while the others did the actual fighting.

Temari got ignored for most of it because she doesn't have any history with Hidan. Shiho does love her, she's just more of a daddy's girl because they didn't get married until she was four.

Originally, she was HidanTemari spawn but I couldn't think of a good enough reason why she wouldn't live with her uncles.

Anyone willing to tell me if Shikamaru is horribly OOC?

I may eventually write the prequel which explains how they got together, why she was allowed to keep the baby and all sorts of stuff like that. I don't really like the idea of writing Hidan's mouth so it might not happen.

Edit: I hadn't realised that the codebreaker with a crush on Shikamaru was also named Shiho. It's just a coincidence, I guess.


End file.
